Eris Adderly-The Eighth House

Anyone who reads on Literotica may be familiar with The Eighth House by DeathandTaxes. Well, D&T turns out to be Eris Adderly. The funny thing is that I found her stories on Lit and her books on Amazon separately and liked them both. It wasn’t until she said something on FB about another story that I realized that they were the same person. I read this story once or twice on Lit. So OK, maybe it was more like five or six times, but who’s counting? I’ve been waiting for this book to come out for a long time and pre-ordered it as soon as I could. I’m really enjoying the differences.

Persephone is my favorite myth. We all know the story. Persephone gets taken to the Underworld to be married to Hades. Demeter goes nuts and nothing grows, famines happen, all kinds of terrible things. Persephone eats 6 pomegranate seeds, which would usually relegate her to the Underworld forever, but a compromise is met, she’ll live with Hades for 6 months of the year, and the other 6 months, she’ll live on Olympus. The 6 months she lives in the Underworld are fall and winter, spring and summer are when she comes back. There’s just something so… I don’t know. The story just speaks to me so much. So, when I found Eris’s version, I had to read it. It was like something jumped out at me and said READ. So I did.

So, here we go, The Eighth House.

We open on a beach, where Persephone has just been having an interlude with a mortal man. She’s not all that satisfied, but her lover thinks that she’s all that and a bag of chips, which of course, she totally is. I mean, goddess, right? When she leaves that guy, she heads to see Polyxene, a mortal woman who she considers a friend. She’s been visiting Polyxene off and on for many years, sometimes giving her samples of plants that are very powerful and stronger. Anyway, while she is there, Persephone asks to wear Polyxene’s ring, does some magic to it, and tells Polyxene that if the ring hasn’t changed when Persephone sees her again, she can have what’s in it.

Flash to the Underworld. Hades is being confronted by Aphrodite. She wants a favor from Hades, and she reminds Hades that he owes her. She tells him that her favor is that he will take Persephone and make her his. When questioned, Aphrodite tells Hades that the reason for it is that Hermes, Aphrodite’s lover, is paying too much attention to Persephone.

Demeter, Persephone’s mother, has done everything she can to keep her away from the gods on Olympos. Demeter thinks that Persephone is still a maiden and hasn’t had anything to do with any man. She treats Persephone like she is a little girl, not as if she’s a grown goddess. So, Demeter sends her dear, darling, “maiden” daughter off to Nysa to gather baskets of flowers with Artemis and Athena.

While she is there, Hades arranges for the earth to open up and for Persephone to fall into the Underworld and into his arms. He had been planning on just playing with Persephone up until that point. When he saw, smelt, and felt her, he knew that he was doomed.

Alright, here is where we split. The Eighth House is a wonderful book. Not only is a good retelling of the Persephone/Hades myth, you get a book with a great plotline, wonderful descriptions, and hot sex scenes. So, really, it’s a win/win in my view. I have put it under dark romance because there is BDSM in there, but it isn’t as dark as other books I’ve put in there. There is an HEA, which yay! I don’t always need an HEA, but it’s nice to read. Right now this book is on KU, but as always, I recommend that you buy it. You’ll want to read it over and over.

Before I go anywhere else with this post, I need to talk about the bridge scene. I can neither confirm nor deny that I have that whooooooole scene highlighted in my Kindle for… reasons. It is one of the most mind-blowing scenes that I’ve ever read. I mean, I’ve read some really hot sex scenes, but the reason that this one really got to me what the whole trust issue between Persephone and Hades. It’s not like it was easy for her to do what she did, but that’s what makes it so amazing.

Ok, now that I have that out of the way. Hades is now one of my newest book boyfriends. He is so devoted to Persephone, even when he is trying hard to control himself and not to be. Not only that, he actually gives a fuck about his job and about the souls under his care. I love his physical description, it’s a really stark image in my head but stark in a good way, like a statue carved of ivory with ebony accents.

Persephone. Poor Persephone. Polyxene was the only one who even came close knowing her before she met Hades. At one point, during a fight she’s having with her mother towards the end of the book, she tells her mom that she’s been boning mortal males all this time and what did it say about her mother that Hades knew more about her than her own mother did. I, personally, don’t think that Demeter really likes Persephone all that much. I mean, sure, she probably loved her, but just because you love someone doesn’t mean that you actually like them all the time.

I’m really glad that I bought this one. Like I said, I had it on pre-order as long as it was possible to. I may have squeed a little bit when I found out that Eris was turning it into a book. It looks like it’s going to be the first one in a series, and I can’t wait to see what else she has coming for us!